Alex Rins tops Day 1 at Sepang

Team Suzuki ECSTAR took to the Sepang International Circuit with positive energy following a successful weekend in Australia. The morning’s FP1 session at the Malaysian track stayed dry, allowing Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone to work on set-up and try different configurations of their aerodynamic package. In the afternoon’s FP2 session the emphasis was on improving the lap times in case of rain on Saturday morning. Alex Rins got faster and faster throughout the afternoon, setting the quickest lap a few minutes before the end of the session and holding onto 1st place overall. The Spaniard also topped track sectors 1 & 2.

“I’m really happy because the bike was really good today. Our rhythm was strong, even with a used tyre, so we’re feeling hopeful. The bike has actually changed quite a lot since we tested here; it has better top speed and we have a different configuration of aero fairing, so we can clearly see the positive development which has taken place during the season. I’m looking forward to tomorrow”, Alex Rins explained.

photo: Suzuki

Alex Rins tops Day 1 at Sepang

Andrea Dovizioso was second while Marc Marquez registered the third fastest time.

“All in all it was a good day for us. This morning I felt good, but this afternoon we struggled a lot at the beginning of the FP2 session: I had some moments and had save it a few times. Finally, we changed the front tyre from hard to medium and in the last run we could improve our speed and our lap time. Anyway we need to work very hard on our race pace. We’ll try a different setup in order to see if we may manage better the front tyre. We need to make a step forward is we want to get closer to Dovizioso, who at the moment is the fastest out there”, Marquez explained.